St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-01-29

to admit, upon the broad principle that
representation is the democratic corallary
of taxations that the lady who contributes
! to maintain the mechanism of So
ciety should enjoy as large measure of
political privileges as her coachman or her
butler The trouble has not been to get
intelligent men to make their acknowI-
edgenlent. but to convince them that it is
] eXpedent to confer the franchise upon the
sex. Their reluctance to do so receives it's
chief encouragement from the fact already
stated that ninety nine out of hundred
women do not covet the privilege of voting.
So far as my own observation goes the
number of those who do covet it has not
appreciably increased within the last dozen
or fifteen years.
Indeed, there is less discussion of the SUBJ
ject now in private circles, less manifesto
ton of desire to hear the subject discussed
than there was when the trumpet tongued
Wendell Phillips defended the cause; be-
lore riotous audiences, who interrupted his
| flight OF polished eloquence with occasional
showers OF valetudinarian eggs. If any
| thing, the ''cauSe" has retrogaded, not
outstanding its fitful flashes of vitality in
certain Western states and some of the ter
| ritorieS. The woman who is able to pay her
| own butcher bill by the product of her daily
labor, and who finds other than pecuniary
reward in the eXcitements of her tasks,
would SEEM to be the one most naturally
! inclined to push her victory over social pre-
judiceto the extent of an attack on the bal
lot-boX. The truth is, however. that she is
just the one who exhibits the least interest
in that direction. The ingenuity which
might find exercise in the arts of politi-
cal strategy is more probably EN-
ployed in the cleaning of shekels She
has no wish to invade the caucus or the con-
ventlon, and she certainly has no leisure.
Having money to spend, she is content to
devote her spare moments to the truly fem
mime occupation Of shopping. 1t will be
long time before tie interest excited by a
political canvass can supplant in her mind
the interest excited by the details of the
construction of new bonnet. That is the
way woman is built and If there is any
blame to be apportioned her Creator must
bear it.
AT the bottom of the whole matter, there
fore lies this paramount and fundamental
questioned what the woman wants l am
OF those who believe that what she sincerely
wants she will ultimately get. When she
moves in unison and with will she is
majority and man is a minority. AS in all
great popular movements the very impulse
would signify the existence of justifica-
ton for it. Ii at any time American wo-
men demand the right Of voting it will be
because there is good reason for it in the
existing coddtion of things. They will ask
it not upon abstract but upon concrete
grounds. Because there is no repro ach. no
disrespect implied in the denial of it, there
will be no earnest striving for its attain
ment without the pressure of a powerful,
practical, and widely prevalent motive.
Until that pressure is felt the appeals of the
sentimental reformers must continue to be
a merely fruitless expenditure of wit and
eloquence.